


Odi et Amo

by k_drake



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Dark!Solas, Eluvians, F/M, Guilt, I think I might be a terrible person, Kink Meme, Mild Blood, Mortality, POV Lavellan, POV Solas, POV Third Person Limited, Porn with Feelings, Rough Sex, Shameless Smut, Solas - Freeform, Vallaslin, fingernails/scratching, it's complicated - Freeform, love is not enough, no happy endings here, once we were, too real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-18 01:14:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3550616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/k_drake/pseuds/k_drake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>K!Meme fill for prompt: "Inquisitor Lavellan encounters Solas at some point [1-2 months] after the game ends. Maybe he's come back to Skyhold, maybe it's out in the wilderness somewhere, whatever works. The Inquisitor's not happy with the conclusion of the relationship, and Solas is pent up over something-or-other."  Naturally, dark and twisty sexytimes ensue.  OP also requested a real-world setting (as opposed to Fade), fingernails/blood, initiative taken by Inquisitor, and NO Dread Wolf reveals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?  
> nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior." - Catullus

“Are you sure you’re all right, Inquisitor?” Cassandra demands.

Ellana Levallan nods grimly.  She is afraid that if she speaks, the pain in her voice will give her away. 

With Corypheus dead, Ellana is determined to root out and seal the remaining Fade rifts, vestiges of the Breach that once threatened all of Thedas.  For the past few weeks, she has maintained a relentless, almost frenzied pace, traversing the lengths of Ferelden, Orlais, and the Free Marches.  When her companions protest, she leaves them at camp, urging them to rest while she goes on alone.  She is never seriously hurt during these excursions, but she begins to accumulate small injuries: an ankle sprained while dodging a demon’s blow, a wrist fractured after an unlucky tumble down a slippery bank, plus countless scratches and bruises, and stiff hips and swollen legs from hours of unremitting (ab)use.     

“You do not look well,” says Cassandra.  It is early in the morning, and she has caught Ellana trying to leave before anyone else is awake.  Her arm is still in a sling, and she is clumsier and noisier than she would be normally.  

“Such sweet talk,” says Ellana, hiding her grimace with a smile.

“We should return to Skyhold,” insists Cassandra, impervious as usual to Ellana’s attempts to charm her.  “Perhaps word has finally arrived from Weisshaupt.”

“We are not finished here,” Ellana replies.  “There is more to be done.”

“Inquisitor, you are making yourself ill.  Most of the rifts are already closed, and our agents maintain a vigil over those that remain, ready to fight any demons that may emerge.  We have a little time.”

“I’m fine, Cassandra,” says Ellana, allowing annoyance to creep into her voice.  “A bit of elfroot tonic and I’ll be as sprightly as a young halla.”

“You can’t survive on potions alone, Inquisitor.”

“That’s why I brought brandy.”

“You’re impossible,” grouses Cassandra, but Ellana thinks she detects a note of admiration in the other woman’s voice.  Her triumph is short-lived however, because it proves impossible to mount her hart one-handed by herself, and Cassandra refuses to help her. 

“The only thing I’m going to help you do is get to a healer,” she informs her.

Instead of deigning to reply, Ellana leads her hart over a nearby rock that she scrambles atop.  This gives her the height she needs to flop onto her hart’s back, where she lies awkwardly for a few moments, legs dangling, before struggling into a sitting position. 

“See?  Nothing to worry about,” she says thickly, feeling nauseated and dizzy from the exertion. 

When Ellana wakes up later in her bed in Skyhold, she will be told how she only made it a few yards away from camp before pitching forward, unconscious, into her mount’s neck.  She has slept for two days, she learns, rousing herself only long enough to attempt to punch the healer who was examining her wounds. 

“You tried to use your Anchor on her,” Varric chuckles. 

Everyone seems highly amused by her condition.  “Of course we were worried, Inquisitor,” explains Josephine.  “It’s just hard not to laugh at you singing garbled snatches of ‘Once We Were’ while delirious with fever.” 

Her friends and advisors are all there, clustering by her bed to bring her nosegays from the garden and treats from the kitchen, to tell her jokes and tidbits of gossip.  The Iron Bull sneaks her some brandy, and Cole goes so far as to entice a mother cat up from the stables; she arrives with four kittens in tow. 

They don’t seem to understand that all their kindness and sympathy just make her feel worse.  She knows she should be happy, but it is impossible.  Staying in Skyhold is torture.  The Inquisition is so firmly entrenched here that it would be ludicrous to relocate, but there is nowhere in the castle Ellana can go where she is not reminded of Solas and, by extension, his departure.  Nevertheless, she is firmly told that she must spend at least a week recuperating, and although she could flout these orders if she really wanted to, she has no wish to antagonize her friends. 

A while ago, Ellana gave the order to stop looking for Solas, reasoning that if he hadn’t been found yet, it was because he did not want to be.  As such, continuing to search would only be a waste of resources.  Similarly, she ordered herself to stop thinking of him, but this has proved more difficult.  She isn’t sure if this cognitive persistence is her “indomitable will” ( _his_ words) exemplified or subverted.

Feeling trapped, Ellana retreats into the only place she can think of that is both accessible and remote: the Crossroads.  Not long after Morrigan left, she had the witch’s eluvian brought up to her chambers, and now she uses it to disappear for hours at a time.  There is a sort of peace to be found wandering among the endless corridors of darkened eluvians.  The Crossroads has the same hushed serenity as a graveyard, which in a way, she thinks, it is.  And she is the ghost that haunts it.  Fitting, considering that Abelas called her—called all the Dalish—a mere shadow.  As for Solas…

Looking back, it seems so obvious now.  Really, that it took her this long to realize that Solas is an ancient elf makes her wonder whether she is qualified to run the Inquisition.  Not that she had a choice; it wasn’t like she applied for the job.  And, come to think of it, the only qualification was the ability to mend Fade rifts.  Still, she likes to think of herself as reasonably competent, so why had she never thought to question Solas’ knowledge of the elves and the Anchor, or probe deeper into his vague and evasive answers about his origins? 

“Who _are_ your people?” she asked him once.

“That is a good question,” he said. 

 _Isn’t it, though?  Why don’t you fucking answer it then?_ She wishes she had said.

Even after Solas had spoken to Abelas at the Temple of Mythal, and told him of “other duties” and Elvhen that “yet linger,” her suspicions had not been aroused.  Even after Abelas had given his arch reply, “Elvhen such as you?” and Solas had affirmed: “Such as I.”

True, she has excuses for this oversight—some better than others.  She was preoccupied by the pending apocalypse, for one thing.  There was also the fact that she had spent far more time thinking about Solas’ kisses than his council.  It wasn’t until after he had left that she had been able to think clearly enough to realize who—what—he was.  To think that once he called her wise, all the while knowing how handily he had tricked her!  And she, little fool, had thought he was _complimenting_ her.  How he must have laughed at her expense. 

Ellana has rehearsed many different versions of what she would say to Solas if she ever saw him again.  None of them include her gaping at him while she hyperventilates, hunching forward as she struggles to catch her breath.  Yet that is exactly what happens when she turns a corner and sees him—still wearing his stolen gear, no less!—standing in front of an eluvian, apparently absorbed by whatever he sees in its glowing surface.

He turns around and she imagines that the shock on his face mirrors her own.  He presses against the mirror, the pane yielding before him like liquid.  He is about to cross through it, to desert her once again, without explanation.  Unthinkingly, Ellana lowers her head and charges him like a bronto.  He lifts a hand to ward her off, and she hurtles right into his outstretched arm, sending both of them tumbling through the mirror.   


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas' POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> « Pourquoi est-il impossible de faire du bien à quelqu’un sans lui faire de mal ? Pourquoi est-il impossible d’aimer quelqu’un sans le détruire? » - Amélie Nothomb, "Mercure"

It is dark, except for a faint glow cast by lyrium runes etched into the walls.  Solas has the advantage of knowing where the mirror leads—to an abandoned thaig near Kal-Sharok—but Ellana has the advantage of him.  She is sitting astride him now, holding him down with all her might, and—what’s this? She’s cast a protective barrier around herself. 

“Do you think I’m going to hurt you?” Solas asks.  “Are we enemies now?”

Does she hate him?  He wonders.  He tries not to care.  The Dalish have been hating him for generations, and it does little more than irritate him.  Why is this different?  In the grand scheme of things, she is insignificant; even more so now with the Breach closed and the orb— _his_ orb—destroyed.  What little power the Anchor has left is only useful for sealing rifts caused by the orb.  No, there is no way for him to justify the usefulness of keeping her around, so why can’t he stop thinking about her? Hadn’t his affection been an act, a way to disarm her and gain her trust?  The moment it had begun to feel real—the moment he had forgotten he was wearing a mask—he had, rightly, ended things between them.  The separation has proven far more difficult than it should have, and she has haunted his dreams since, her likeness wandering beside him in the Fade.  The mere thought of her makes him semi-hard; that she is here, touching him, is almost too much to bear.  He wants her with an intensity that feels oddly similar to bloodlust. 

“You owe me some answers,” she hisses, leaning close to him.  She smells like he remembers, of balsam and wild plums.  “You promised.”

“I said things would become clear.  I did not say I would make them so.”

Solas starts to sit up.  Ellana continues to press him downwards, using her magic to aid her.  The weight of her, the friction against his hipbones as he tries to rise, has gotten him hard.  He hears the sharp intake of her breath when she notices.

Then she is kissing him, her tongue thrusting fiercely into his mouth, her hips rocking slightly over his, sending galvanic shocks through his body.  She catches his lower lip in her teeth and tugs it gently, then harder, as if worrying a piece of meat.  His hands find her way into her hair and he twists it around his fingers, gripping it tightly.  Damn her, she is so real, and he wants her so badly.  He allows himself to fall into the rhythm of their kissing, embracing ferocious pleasure in exchange for a blessed absence of thought.  If Solas thinks too much, he’ll remember how he betrayed her, and how she made him doubtful and weak, and that neither of these offenses is forgivable. 

Her hands have moved down to his hips and are fumbling at his waistband.  She lifts her hips so that she can tug his leggings down, seemingly no longer worried that he’ll try and throw her off to escape.  The feel of her hand around his cock makes him gasp, and she begins to stroke, roughly and quickly.  Solas frees one hand from the tangle of her hair and grips the neck of her jacket, ripping downwards and sending buttons flying.  The cloth gapes open to reveal bare breasts and bandaged ribs. 

She is hurt.  Of course she is hurt, she is so exquisitely fragile, this quick child, so easily spoiled.  This should touch him, but instead the thought makes Solas angry, and he feels the urge to ruin her so that she’ll be like everything else in this Blighted world: an abomination not worth saving.  Why is she even here, if she doesn’t have a death wish?  The Breach has been sealed; she has done her _duty_ ; the wise thing to do now would be to step down, to retreat to normalcy and disappear into the shadows of the forest with her clan.  Since she does not, it must be because she has a perverse desire—conscious or not—to dangle herself in front of danger, to invite suffering.  How dare she be complicit in her own martyrdom?  After all, she cannot really think she will escape unscathed every time, as delicate as she is.  Even now, he can see the gleam of her bare white throat, so temptingly vulnerable to him.

Without warning, Solas flips her around onto her back, slamming her down so hard that she cries out, letting his cock slip from her hand.  He straddles her, pulling her jacket down around her shoulders, pinning her arms to her sides, his erection pressed up against her belly.  He leans over and cups her breasts, kneading the soft handfuls of flesh.  She arches into him, bending her body like a bow, as he dips his head down to take one of her nipples in his mouth.  He bites down.  Hard.  Ellana jerks violently, trying to free her arms from their binding sleeves.  She is trembling against him, and beneath his lips he can feel her heart fluttering in her chest, like the beating of wings.  Still unable to move her hands, she rolls her hips beneath him instead, almost frantic in her movements. 

Solas kisses his way up her neck, biting and licking the tender, slightly salty flesh.  A heat so strong it is almost palpable radiates from her, and for a moment Solas wonders if she is going to cast a fireball and immolate them both.  She doesn’t, but she does exploit the instant he pauses to reflect by sliding up so that she can finally free herself of the jacket.  The movement places her hips directly beneath his own, and now it is his turn to jerk down her breeches down to her ankles, not bothering to take them all the way off.  He feels goosebumps prickle on her thighs as he pushes them apart.  He has wanted this for so long, all the more so because it was something he forbade himself, a desire he vowed he could resist indulging. It seems even he is not immune to his own deception.  


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Auch noch Verlieren ist unser; und selbst das Vergessen  
> hat noch Gestalt in dem bleibenden Reich der Verwandlung.  
> Losgelassenes kreist; und sind wir auch selten die Mitte  
> einem der Kreise: sie ziehn um uns die heile Figur." - Rainer Maria Rilke

Ellana is already slick with want, but the tension in her body makes her tight and resistant.  They both groan as Solas pushes into her.  He stays there for a moment, motionless, then withdraws almost completely before plunging into her again and again, bright spikes of pleasure accompanying each thrust.  She has the impression that he is trying to concentrate his passion and direct it outwards, as if with enough effort he can empty himself of any and all feeling.  She thinks this because that is precisely what she is trying to do as she brings her hips up to meet his.  The obscene slap of flesh against flesh echoes throughout the stone chamber.  Ellana does not know where they are, nor, at the moment, does she care. 

Her anger has not been entirely transmuted into lust.  Some part of her senses that this is another evasion of sorts, that there will be a price for her acceptance of the distraction he offers.  Spitefully, she rakes her nails down his back; they snag against his flesh and she hears him growl something low. 

“What?” she pants.

“You can hurt me,” he says, enunciating.  “At least, you can try.”

Ellana clenches around him and gouges her nails into his sides, not releasing until she feels the skin give and blood trickles beneath her fingertips.  She kicks one of her heels free of her breeches and tries to lock it behind Solas’ legs, but he brings it forward instead, resting her ankle on his shoulder.  The change in angle draws renewed moans of pleasure from both of them, and all Ellana can think is that she is home, both in the sense that she feels she is where she belongs, and that she herself— _inside_ _her—_ is where Solas belongs. Releasing her leg, Solas leans down and nips her throat, scraping her skin with his teeth in a way that’s sure to leave bruises.

Placing both hands on her hips, Solas rolls them over so that Ellana is on top, riding him.  She rocks into him slowly at first, and then, unable to help herself, moves in shorter, more staccato strokes, a cry escaping her lips as she comes.  Her nails gouge red furrows down Solas’ chest as she shudders with her orgasm.  Beneath her, Solas’ grip on her hips tighten as her release precipitates his own. 

He opens his mouth to speak, and Ellana is expecting him to say that he loves her, so it’s somewhat surprising when he breathes, “You’re too real.”  There’s an edge of desperation to his voice, the way he sounded when he saw the orb in pieces upon the ground.  _It was not_ _supposed to happen this way._

Ellana falls forward onto her hands, panting. She runs her tongue along one of Solas’ scratches in a long, slow line—not a jagged, random mark, but a sinuous swirl up his side. Solas grunts, and she arches an eyebrow at him.

“ _Vallaslin_ ,” is all she says.

Suddenly, Solas grabs her arm and hauls her to her feet, dragging her over to the wall of twinkling runes and shoving her back into the rough stone. Ellana tastes the tang of blood upon her lips, and she wonders if it is hers or Solas’.  

“You should not have come here, _vhenan_ ,” he says gruffly.

“Why not? Why do you care where I go, or not?”

“What makes you think I do not care?”

“Solas, what is it? Why did you leave? You can tell me.”

He shakes his head. “I cannot.”

“Come back with me. Or let me come with you.” _This is your chance_ , she thinks. _Choose me this time. Choose_ us. _Everything can be as it was._

He can only look at her sadly, as if at any moment he might weep. But he does not. She knows then, that even though she has given him everything, it is still not enough. He will try and soften the cruelty of what he has done, perhaps, but he will not try and undo it.  

“You don’t trust me,” she states, her voice flat, although she is indignant at the irony: she has never been anything other than honest. Slowly, her wits are returning to her, and she is trying to take stock of where they are, to distinguish any identifying landmarks. They are somewhere underground, in the Deep Roads. More than that, she cannot say. What could Solas possibly want here? Is it the red lyrium? He never seemed that interested in it before. An elven artifact, then? An orb to replace the one that was lost?

“If only you could understand,” he begins.   

“You and I both know that isn’t the problem. You’re afraid I’ll understand _too_ well,” she interrupts.

“I am sorry,” he says, as the force of his spell sends her flying along the wall, back through the eluvian, and into the Crossroads.

In an instant, she springs to her feet and runs back to the mirror, pounding on the glass with the flats of her palms, but it is too late.  The surface has gone hard and opaque, and she has no idea what the key for activating this particular eluvian might be.  For all she knows, it is Solas himself. 

Slowly, Ellana wends her way back to Skyhold, belatedly grateful that the mirror leads directly to her chambers, for Solas neglected to send her clothes back with her.  She would not relish the thought of creeping half-naked through the keep, trailing unraveling bandages and loose threads.

Tired and aching as she crawls into bed, Ellana thinks that she will see Solas again, but is unsure of what that means.  If—when—they are reunited, it will not be because he sought her out.  She realizes now that she misunderstood his intentions: she thought he was there for her.  But no, he has some other, unspeakable purpose that he cannot put aside, one that supersedes everything else.  What it could be, she cannot fathom, but that he is so desperate to undertake this task alone implies that he thinks she would interfere in some way.  She does not flatter herself that he’s concerned for her safety; after all, he didn’t mind letting her face Corypheus and his dragon. 

She loves him.   _Sometimes love is not enough_ , she reminds herself glumly.  But if it’s not, what is? 

She wishes she knew. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I did this prompt justice. I have a lot of feels about this pairing, so even though I feel embarrassed writing smut, I am compelled to do it anyway. *buries head in hands but peers through fingers*


End file.
